Among the Caspian states the Republic of Kazakhstan shares the most similar approach with Azerbaijan to the legal status of Caspian Sea. Like Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan also declares the sector of Caspian belonging to every country must be accepted as its sovereign territory and borders of this sector must be fixed according to the coastal line.  

Kazakhstan offers to entitle every coastal state to use the bottom and natural riches of the Sea in own sector within exceptional authorities. Governed by “equal distance method” of Convention on the Law of the Sea the UN adopted in 1982, Kazakhstan proposes the solution of the problem taking the features of Caspian into consideration. 

In the Ashgabat Summit of Caspian states on April 24, 2002 Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev said: “We offer to identify the agreed coastal fishing zones, divide the bottom of the Sea into national sectors and use the rest together. Our position allows to set an exact limit on the rights of the coastal states to mineral resources, which will fruitfully influence the investment conditions in our region.”

Kazakhstan disapproved the violation of our territorial waters by Iranian navy in summer 2001, which was followed by violation of our air border by Iranian air force that moved forward till Salyan. The Kazakh Foreign Ministry delivered a statement relating this fact: “Kazakhstan considers while operating in Caspian the coastal states should be governed as the UN members by the key principle of the UN Charter – prohibition of threat and use of force.”  

But in this affair position of Kazakhstan differs from that of Azerbaijan, as it involves Russian companies in energy projects and coordinates all its activities with this state in a certain sense.

Laman Khalilova
“Azerbaijan Realities”